Disney-area resort collapses into 100-feet wide sinkhole

Summer Bay resort officials said no one was hurt and it does not appear the depression is growing.

First came the cracking sounds. Then windows started blowing out. And before they knew it, guests felt the ground beneath their Lake County resort near Disney World sinking into the earth.

Guests had only 10 to 15 minutes to escape collapsing buildings at the Summer Bay Resort on U.S. Highway 192 in the Four Corners area, when a large sinkhole — about 100 feet in diameter — opened late Sunday.

No one was injured but about three dozen visitors at the resort left car keys, medication and other personal belongings behind inside their luxury accomodations after the crumbling edifices were evacuated. One building suffered catastrophic destruction while two neighboring ones are being evaluated for possible damage and structural integrity.

"After the geologists' initial survey here, they've indicated it is what they describe as a classic Florida sinkhole about 100 feet in diameter and on a preliminary basis, they do not have a concern that it is growing or will grow," said Summer Bay resort president Paul Caldwell.

He said he received a call from his staff a little after 11 p.m. Sunday about the 15-year-old buildings full of guests sinking into the ground.

Maggie Ghamry was visiting Summer Bay from Gainesville, VA., with a girlfriend and their children when they were rousted from Building 104, the structure that was completely destroyed.

"We checked in at 5:30 and by 11:30 all our belongings were gone, except for our bathing suits and our lives, which we're thankful for," said 27-year-old Ghamry. "It sounded like a fight – like multiple people with aluminum baseball bats who were swinging them against the windows, and then one window broke."

Ghamry said she grabbed everyone and they ran out of the building. But what they saw outside, she said, was most terrifying.

"All of us were like deer in headlights," she said. "You don't see a building every day twisting around like it was in a vortex and coming down around you, and seeing the room you would have slept in with three toddlers sink 50 feet into the ground and then two floors collapsing on top of them."

Caldwell said it is peak season for Summer Bay and there are about 4,500 guests on the 300-acre property located a few miles west of Walt Disney World resort.

"No doubt there would've been injuries if they hadn't gotten the building evacuated," he said during a news conference Monday while praising the reaction of his staff and security guards who raced to get people out.

Lake County officials said they received the first 911 call from the property around midnight. It's not clear why calls did not come in sooner.

Caldwell said the U.S. Geological Survey is expected to bring in its drilling and testing equipment Monday afternoon, but it will be mid-morning Tuesday before any information will be available about whether the sinkhole is growing.

Caldwell said resort officials will continue to keep buildings 104 — the one currently in the ground — 105 and 103 empty. "103 and 105 don't appear visually affected, but we don't know if that is the case," he said.

For displaced guests, Caldwell said some are being accomodated on the rpoperty and others will be housed at other local properties.

"I talked to a lady this morning whose keys, medicine, money and Disney tickets were all in building 104 and she in all likelihood will never see it again," said Caldwell. "We are authorizing cash advances as needed , some have to buy clothes. We are going to do whatever we can to do whatever is right…." We are in the hospitality business and we want to save our guests' vacation."

Confusion and fear

Richard Shanley was on duty as the security guard last night when the building sank. He immediately sprang into action beating on doors, helping people climb out of the building.

"It was scary. You don't know what to do. But you do what you can do to get people out," he said. "I didn't know what was happening, instinct took over."

Shanley ran to one of the buildings to try to wake up guests as the ceiling collapsed and glass shattered. People were petrified and confused, he said.

"I had to run literally from end to end of the building to get people out. While you are running by, pieces of the building are falling down behind you," he said. "So you just do what you can and get out. "

He said guests were afraid that the building might cave in with people inside.

"Some of them were like 'are you serious,' Shanley said. "Some of them were screaming and hollering. I was trying to calm them down as best as I could."

The scene played out like a scene from a movie as terrified children screamed out to their parents.

"Kids were crying. They were saying, 'We don't want to get trapped here. Mommy, we're on vacation. We're here to have fun. This is not what we expected. We don't want to get trapped here,'" Shanley said.